This page collects maps of major Chinese dynasties in Chinese history. All these maps can be enlarged. China Highlights' culture tours take travelers to the highlights of China's imperial monuments, helping them dig deep into local history and culture.

Each empire is listed at its largest extent and the date of that largest extent is given. Various major Dynasties are list as separate empires. The Qing dynasty is listed as the 5th largest, the Yuan dynasty as the 9th largest, the Eastern Han Dynasty as 14th largest, and so on down to the Xia Dynasty.

As geographer Mei-Ling Hsu notes in her study "The Han Maps and Early Chinese Cartography," published in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Han Dynasty maps are not only relics of the second century B.C., but they also predate the second-oldest Chinese maps by 1,300 years.

Concrete evidence of the existence of maps in ancient China can be found in the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). The three silk maps found at the Mawangdui tumulus in Changsha, Hunan Province are traced back to the 2nd century BC. The three maps are a topographic map of the Changsha region, a military map of southern Changsha, and a prefecture map.

It reaches as far south as the South China Sea (the dark half-moon shape in the upper part-of the map). In modern terms the map covers the area of longitude 111-112.30° and latitude 23-26°. There is no scale but according to a modern estimate it is between 1:170,000 and 1:190,000.